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Your iPhone’s built-in speaker can get pretty loud. And when the volume is set too high, audio can startle you as soon as any media starts to play. Thankfully, you can prevent this.
What Is Volume Limit?
Volume Limit is an iOS 18.2 feature that lets you set the maximum volume for your iPhone’s built-in speaker volume. You can cap it at between 20% and 90% of the speaker’s maximum capacity, and your iPhone will play media at this volume, regardless of its current volume level.
Setting the Volume Limit on your iPhone affects audio across a range of media playback, including songs, audiobooks, podcasts, movies, and TV shows, among others. However, it doesn’t affect phone and FaceTime calls, Find My sounds, alerts, ringtones, alarms, or other system sounds, as Apple doesn’t want you to miss critical notifications.
How to Set Up Volume Limit on Your iPhone
Setting up the Volume Limit feature on an iPhone is easy enough. Make sure you’ve updated to iOS 18.2 if you haven’t already, and follow these steps:
- Open Settings.
- Go to Sounds & Haptics, scroll down to the Built-in Speaker section, and select Volume Limit.
- Toggle on the Limit Maximum Volume toggle on the following screen.
- Finally, drag the Maximum Limit slider to the left or right to set the maximum limit percentage. You can do this in increments of ten.
With the maximum volume set, your iPhone will output audio at your specified volume percentage whenever you play any sounds. If you want to play media at a different volume again, simply toggle off the Limit Maximum Volume toggle.
While consuming media at high volume levels is fine occasionally, prolonged exposure can impair hearing function. Limiting the maximum volume of your iPhone’s speaker will not only prevent loud audio from startling you but might also help save your hearing.
You can also reduce exposure to loud audio over AirPods or other headphones. Simply set up the Headphone Safety feature on your iPhone, and it’ll cap the volume to your specified decibel level.
